20 Weeks

So, this past week has been kind of crazy, with me moving in with my brother-in-law and his family. I missed my 20 week picture by (oh about 5 days lol). But here is me at 20 weeks & 5 days. Definitely noticing a pretty rapid growth in my belly! yay for baby growing strong.

I started my away rotation in Trauma & Emergency surgery in San Antonio this past Monday. It's definitely been a good learning experience for me, i never realized how spoiled I was in Lubbock. Now I have no clue what i'm going to do for residency, but at least i feel better informed about my choices. Even though my belly is sticking out quite a bit now I'm still hiding it (or rather, just not mentioning it) to the doctors/residents i'm working with in San Antonio. You'd be surprised at how much the loose-fitting scrubs can hide. Although I am having a problem keeping my pants up! I no longer have a waist to tie the pants on so they just keep sliding down (especially because i typically have a pager, my name tag, my stethoscope, and sometimes a phone hanging on my pants too)

Our little GIRL is kicking up a storm nowadays too! I absolutely LOVE feeling pregnant, it's such a neat experience. I'm so blessed in every aspect.

Today i'm on my day "off" because i work my first 24 hr shift tomorrow. It's a saturday night in San Antonio so i have a feeling there won't be any sleeping.

Weeks: 20
Fruit/veggie: banana
Milestones: Started my away rotation, I can feel the baby kick through the outside of my belly now too. :)
Cravings: None, back to just trying to make sure i get enough protein & calories to support both me on trauma and my baby girl growing.

It's a GIRL!!!

So after a LONG week of waiting, a  delicious cake, and a surprise unintended phone call from my OB's office that accidentally told me the gender 1 day before the big reveal...we now know we are having a little girl!!!

even though it wasn't a total surprise for me or hubby (since i found out he DID cheat at the ultrasound!) it was still really fun to tell all of our family members at the same time. And the cake was REALLY good! 

We are pretty sure of the name, but since we have 2 that we really like we may wait until we meet her to decide what her name should be.  I love Micah's face in this picture. He was so happy just to be able to have kids that he always said he would be happy to have either a boy or a girl, but I know him so well and he is going to be an AMAZING daddy, especially to a little girl! 

I'm so excited for ballet and tutus and princess stuff and dolls! 

We love you baby girl and there are so many people who cannot wait to meet you! 

Future Dr. Beierle

Going to detour away from the baby for a minute. My residency application goes out in less than 1 month. They took professional pictures of us for the application... It's kind of weird to see a picture like this of myself. I look so...official lol. Anyway, this is the picture that all of the surgery program directors will be looking at as they decide whether to interview me.  Seems like just yesterday a photo like this was being taken for my high school senior pictures! (technically 8 yrs ago?!?) Now just 3 months until I start interviewing, and 7 months until I learn where i'll be spending the next 5+ years of my life. 

Hi world, introducing S. Beierle, soon-to-be-MD

Let's see, I have a degree in Biomedical engineering, i'm married to the man of my dreams, I'm a mom (technically), I have a house with 2 dogs, and I'm nearly a physician. Have I mentioned how much God has blessed me???? Just typing that makes me want to cry... (or maybe it's the horomones?) 

To anyone reading this... THANK YOU! for all of your support helping me get to this point in my life. I definitely didn't do this alone. 

what was I thinking?

Why oh why did we agree to keep the gender of the baby a secret?!?! This is so hard. I want to go shopping for baby stuff so bad but I don't want to just get gender neutral stuff, there are so many cute flowery girl things or adorable blue blankets... *sigh* oh well, guess our checkbook will benefit from me not knowing yet. Here is a picture of the envelope! Still sealed...

4 more days!

Oh, and I think we came up with the perfect boy middle name. (the first name has always been decided because it was Micah's Opa's name and has a lot of meaning and significance for the family) but the middle name we have been waivering on. We'll reveal the full name saturday night if it turns out that's what we are having.

Lastly, Hannah cracks me up with all the different positions she sleeps in. I swear she is the only dog who sleeps more like a human than a dog. Hips facing one direction, upper arms facing another, and head vacing another. Silly pup.

Belly progression

Decided to do a progression shot so you can see the progression of the actual belly (as opposed to my gut) the 1st picture was taken at 17 wks 2 days, the second one at 19 weeks.

a different angle comparing 17 wks to 19 weeks. Not much higher, but wider definitely. 

19 weeks

So here we are, 19 weeks along now. Nearly 1/2 way! I'm starting to think i should be more picky about which clothes i take these pictures in. today's outfit definitely isn't flattering. I think if I had a smaller butt I wouldn't look so big. If you take and cover up half of my butt with your hand suddenly I don't look quite so big. Oh well, tis the body God gave me :) 

lots of stuff going on this week. I'm off of school and on Wed.  Micah and I are heading to Fredericksburg, TX for a little "babymoon": 2 nights in a bed & breakfast, with lots of little shopping, eating, and relaxing. Then we visit family for 2 nights. Saturday is Micah's mother's birthday so we are having a combined birthday dinner slash gender reveal which i'm SUPER excited about. Micah got into the spirit too and he suggested that he wear a pink shirt and I wear a blue one. We found him a pink t-shirt with a deer skull on it and I'm wearing a blue maternity shirt with a cute saying i found as an iron on (i'll share it after saturday). meanwhile i also found 2 other iron-on's that I liked, one of which I'm wearing for this picture :) Yay for crafting. 

one of my 5 dollar t-shirts with the iron-on that says "Gift from God" 

On sunday Micah will fly back to lubbock and I will get settled at his brother's house in San Antonio. I'm Terrified. I'll be living with people i've met only a handful of times (including a 2 and 5 yr old). I'll be working in a hospital i've never stepped foot into, with people i've never met before, in a city that i've never lived in... Oh yeah and it's my job to impress them so they want to hire me as a resident. And don't forget I'll be back to working 80 hrs or so while being 20 weeks pregnant. *sigh* this is where I remind myself that I am just trying to follow God's plan and i shouldn't worry because if it is his wish then things will be fine, and if it isn't, well, I don't really have a say in it anyway lol. At least come Saturday night I'll know if the baby that keeps wiggling inside me is a boy or girl. One day at a time, right? 

Weeks: 19
Fruit/Veggie: mango
Weight gain: 8 lbs

Milestones: Finding out sex of baby! Definitely feeling kicks now, albeit small ones

other stuff: i'm HOT...all the time. Like seriously. I feel so bad for all those women who have to go through menopause in Texas. I'm so sad that just as Lubbock will start cooling down i'm going to be in San Antonio so i'm going to have another month of HOT. 

Heaven on earth

So, after planning this gender reveal thing I found myself looking at more and more pictures of cupcakes and cake than i could imagine. let's just say I found myself 5 days into a HUGE cupcake craving, so after going to the gym yesterday I decided I deserved a cupcake today. so i made a little trip down to the best cupcake bakery in lubbock. "Peace O'Cake" and oh my goodness they are good! Micah and I split a "black & white" which is the cupcake with blue icing in the picture as well as a "cookies & cream" cupcake. They were quite possibly the best cupcakes I've ever had in my life! As I sit here trying to work on an essay i need to write the baby is wriggling around like crazy. Guess all that sugar hyped the baby up too :) yes baby, it is the best thing ever!

Anatomy scan, It's a...

This is a profile view of baby, top of the head to the left,
 an arm/hand by the chin on the right. nose/mouth facing up. 

Healthy Baby!!!!!!!! We went for our Anatomy scan today. the baby was healthy but stubborn. Took over 1/2 an hour to get all of the measurements they needed because the baby was laying head down, chin to chest, facing my back. Which is actually the perfect position if it were closer to delivery, but for now he/she still has a lot of room and we needed him/her to move around so we could get good measurements of the head. After a lot of belly vibrating by the tech, and having me lay on my left side and then on my right side and then back on my left side for a few minutes we finally got baby to rotate enough to be able to measure the head and see if it is a boy or girl!

I made myself close my eyes during the gender part though, the tech knew i wanted to keep it a secret for 1 more week so she took a quick picture. she put the picture in one card (that is sealed and we will keep ourselves to make sure the information doesn't get lost) and she wrote down the sex in another card that was addressed to the baker and we sealed it and put it in the mail today so they can have the cake made next Saturday.

What makes things more interesting is I have no clue if my husband knows the gender. He was "acting up" during the whole appointment and when it came time to close our eyes for the gender he was pretending not to, or pretending to... the tech kept catching him and threatened to turn off the tv screen, then called him a "cheater" because he was peaking. At that point (with my eyes still closed) I told him it was fine with me if he looked, but he better keep a secret for a week! Afterwards i kept asking him if he knew and he always had a funny comment, or laugh, or statement... but he never really said "yes OR no" so we will see. My hunch is that he saw the picture but not the writing on whether it was a boy or girl so while he technically "saw" he isn't sure of what he saw.

Based on measurements the baby now weighs 8 oz. We got to see it's little femurs and arms, spine and heart. All 4 chambers were pumping well. Heart rate was 155.

The baby has a silly dad but otherwise is doing great.

18 Weeks

There's no more doubt in my mind about my baby bump! I officially look pregnant, if I say so myself :) Of course wearing the empire-wasted shirt and doing the "belly-hold" pose doesn't hurt the look either. 

Let's see, what happens this week... oh yeah... OUR ANATOMY SCAN!!!!!!! Yay!!!!! So ready to find out if this little one is a boy or girl. It makes it seem so real that after Friday I'll know the name of the little "thing" inside me so i can quit referring to it as "it" lol.

Weight gain: about 8 lbs
Fruit/Veggie this week: Sweet Potato
Milestones: I'm definitely feeling flutters every once in a while. We have a home doppler and it is so neat to everyonce in a while just sit there with the doppler still on my tummy and hear "thump", "badump", and then "bum.ba da bum. ba da bum.ba da bum" as the baby kicks and turns and then winds up with the heart near the doppler. The baby is definitely active and getting bigger everyday.
We have a doctor's appointment this Thursday and then...oh yeah... Our anatomy scan on FRIDAY!!! I'm so nervous that there will be something wrong, i cannot wait for the scan to be over with and to be told that the heart, kidneys, and brain look good. We haven't decided what we are going to do yet about the sex. Micah and I will most likely find out at the appointment, but we are going down to san antonio in just 1 week so it might be more fun to tell everyone the sex in person at the same time... Of course we may not be able to keep a secret that long... only time will tell :)

Good family friends of ours took Micah and I out to eat last night in celebration of his thesis defense (along with celebrating our marriage and baby since we hadn't really celebrated that with them). It was the most expensive dinner of my life so far! And, I tried Quail for the first time. It was pretty good, but i don't think i'm a fan of eating dinner that looks like a critter still (i hated that it had wings/legs on it) but Micah said this was actually the best done Quail he'd ever had. They had debreasted it too which apparently helps it not look so much like a critter either. The appetizer (a lobster/crab/puff pastry) and the desert (red velvet cake with layers of cream cheese filling topped with chocolate ganache) were AMAZING though.

I'm still attempting to cook a little healthier and tried my hand at some pork lo mein cooked the "low-fat" way for lunch. I think it was delicious, and micah got seconds if that says anything about it.

Guess I still talk about food a lot huh? lol. Oh well, yay for Pregnancy!

Bored Baby Belly

So now that i'm on geriatrics I seem to have more free time than I know what to do with. (ok, so theoretically I should have a perfectly clean house, the dogs should be groomed, my application should be finished...etc. which of course I don't.) In my procrastinating though I decided to try to capture what is my favorite thing right now. When I wake up in the morning and I lay flat on my back my "bump" is SUPER easy to feel. Once I stand up it's like all of my intestines and tummy fat mask the actual bump, so i still just look chunky/fat. But laying down I can't help but smile at how much my tummy is growing. Here are my pictures!

Notice how my belly juts out right after my belly button. That's BABY!

This one is a little bit hard to see, but if you look at the location of my "bump" compared to the belly button you can see how the baby likes to hang out on the left side and either because or as the cause my uterus is lopsided :) 

Ok guess i have to go be productive now.

17 weeks

Wow, time is flying! This week I was thrilled to notice in the mornings (before I eat) that if I lay flat on my back I have a nice round bump that is super noticeable. Yay for a growing baby. It is crooked though and leans more toward my left, guess that is where the little jellybean likes to hang out. I'm definiely feeling "pregnant" in that my tummy is pooching out and i'm starting to think my face is getting more round along with my legs and arms. Decided to go ahead and take a real "belly" shot. (tightening up my abs first and then relaxing them second) The skirt isn't that flattering though :/ I'll try a different outfit next week.

   

Speaking of the skirt though, It happens to be one of the MANY items I got from someone on craigslist for 75 bucks total! Lots of new maternity clothes to help me not have a breakdown when i try to get dressed in normal clothes. 

Important things this week: Micah SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED HIS THESIS!!!!!!!!!!! Wooooooo and I finished my SICU rotation, which means I'll actually get to sleep a full night for the next 3 weeks :) I feel like I need to work-out but i'm not sure how... This week I decided my focus would be to try to eat healthier (fresh) foods rather than the fast-food/cafeteria/processed stuff i've had to live on the past month. tonight I'm making fresh home-made beef and broccoli. Yumm 

less than 2 weeks until we find out if jelly bean is a boy or girl!!!! I cannot wait!!!!!!!!!! We also will hopefully find out it is growing healthy and without problems! So prayers for a healthy baby are appreciated. And in 2 and a half weeks we go on a mini vacation to Fredericksburg and have 2 nights at a Bed & Breakfast. A much needed break for both of us. (all 3 of us? lol). 

Fruit/veggie this week: An Onion

Weight gain so far: about 7 lbs. 

Milestones: Everyonce in a while I wonder if I felt something move, but it's so faint I think it could just be my imagination thinking the baby is moving. Probably it'll get stronger and more identifiable in the next few weeks. 

I feel SO blessed. God just continues to pour out his Blessings on both Micah and I. We are so thankful and humbled and we cannot wait for this jelly bean to come. What a wonderful addition to our grace-filled life.